


Keeping Secrets

by Eva



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-04
Updated: 2011-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-21 00:31:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eva/pseuds/Eva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meme wants wing!fic.  So, Gabriel Lestrade has wings, and now Sherlock, John, and Mycroft know.  Complete.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

*********

Gabe hasn’t had trouble with his wings since puberty.

They ache now, though, weighing heavily on his already hunched and throbbing shoulders. They’re always present, of course, if not always material, but he is rarely made to spare them a thought; they’re like his ears, or his cheekbones.

But they hurt like hell in his teens, when they weren’t itching fit to drive him mad, and they hurt now, as he stands in the rain watching an ambulance take away a man who, God help him, deserves far worse than poor Kitty had dished out, and how is he supposed to make sure the charges against her and Sherlock don’t stick?

It isn’t even his case, has nothing to do with him, except that Sherlock had been beaten half to death not a week ago and he doesn’t know why he feels responsible for the git, he just does. And for anyone else Sherlock drags into it, as well. Kitty’s head is bowed as she’s helped into the back of a panda and Gabe closes his eyes, promising himself that she’ll be all right, one way or the other.

He gives into the urge to rub at his neck, trying to ease muscles that shouldn’t be so strained, except that stress seems to accumulate in his wings as weight.

“You all right?” Dr. Watson asks, and his hand settles on Gabe’s right shoulder blade with gentle strength. Gabe flinches so hard that his teeth click together; no one ever touches his back, no one is ever allowed, and warmth radiates from material skin to immaterial feathers and he feels them straining and, goddammit, itching--

“Sorry, I--”

He pushes his way past the doctor, past an altogether too-interested Sherlock Holmes, and manages to get ‘round the townhouse and into a secluded little spot between it and another building before the itching becomes too painful for him to stand upright. He leans against cool brick, steadying his breathing, trying to remember the old tricks--

focus on your skin, on your bones, on the parts of you that are here and not there, and don’t feel anything that isn’t supposed to be felt, because if you do--

“Lestrade, are you--” and the doctor’s hands are on his back again and that’s it, they rip through his shirt and through his jacket and the pain is so immense he gags and slides down the wall, landing on his knees with his hands and forehead pressed against brick. He hears Dr. Watson gasp out some sort of curse as he retches, rain pounding against delicate feather and bone with all the concussive force of bullets.

“Well, isn’t this interesting,” he hears Sherlock Holmes say, sounding both surprised and horribly delighted, as he sinks into grey.

*********

John pulls himself together the moment Sherlock takes a step forward, hand out to touch. “Don’t you dare.”

“But, John--”

“Shut it.” He ducks down, pushing under one arched wing--wing! a grey-ish white, feathery, honest to God wing!--and gets between Lestrade and the wall. Lestrade’s eyes are closed and his breathing is harsh, and John checks his pulse as he lifts an eyelid. “Lestrade, can you hear me?”

“He’s flinching,” Sherlock says, hovering over them.

“Hurts,” Lestrade mutters, and John looks up at him hopefully.

“What hurts?” he asks. “Lestrade?”

“Rain,” is the only answer; Lestrade shudders once more and is limp against John, his wings drooping and dragging along the ground.

John looks at Sherlock helplessly. “We have to get him inside. Without--”

“Without anyone seeing him, I know,” Sherlock snaps, and wipes rain from his still-bruised face. “I can steal a--”

“Just call him!” John interrupts, trying to stand and pull Lestrade up with him.

Sherlock explodes, “I am not going to call--”

“We can’t get him out of here any other way!”

“I’m not going to let Mycroft--”

“He could be seriously hurt! Sherlock!”

They stare at each other, each willing the other to understand. The rain continues to pour down, and John spares one worried look at the dark clouds.

“Mycroft will take an interest,” Sherlock says finally, delicately, and John sighs.

“We don’t have a choice.” He looks at the man in his arms, at the wings getting wetter and darker. “Neither does he.”

*********

They’d always been there.

Gabe remembers talking about them as a child, when his mother laughed about it and called him her little angel, when his father only rolled his eyes and told him maybe he’d be a bird when he grew up. He remembers realising that no one else talked about having wings; no one else shrugged their shoulders on sunny days to fluff up feathers that no one else could see; no one else slept exclusively on their stomach or avoided leaning against walls.

He remembers being nine, and telling himself he must be imagining things.

He remembers being twelve, and the first time they burst out into reality.

It wasn’t that they hurt--well, yes, they did, they do, but that’s only because they’re so sensitive that everything feels a hundred times more. A gentle breeze that ruffled the feathers had him crying; actually touching them had him passing out. After a month or so, direct sunlight stopped making them feel bruised.

And as long as he could feel them, as long as they were hurting, he couldn’t make them go away. Or back. Wherever. He had to focus elsewhere, on the rest of his body, on ignoring all twinges of sensation until they finally, blessedly, blissfully settled back into unreality, into that other space, and he could relax again. Until they ached again, or itched--oh, how he’d hated the itching--and he had to let them come back, in some dark, cool place so that he could find some way to relieve them. It was usually a matter of straightening them out as best he could, flinching from his own touch, until he’d managed to desensitise himself enough to his own hands.

But he’d managed to tuck them away into their own little space for good, he thought, in his early twenties; he hadn’t seen them or even felt them much for two decades, although he should have realised that he was in trouble when he’d grown gradually more and more aware of them in the past three years or so.

They’re bigger, he realises as he starts to wake up. They’re heavier; they have more feathers. They’re sensitive again. They’re aching dully; his whole body is, but they are especially.

“Lestrade?” a soft voice says, and Gabe registers the soft surface he’s lying on--a mattress?--and the harsh, persistent burn of electric light on his still-present, still damnably real wings.

*********

“Turn it off,” Lestrade croaks, and John looks up at Sherlock. For once, Sherlock is just as lost as he.

“The light,” Lestrade says with a bit more force, managing to turn his head and glare at John from under one slowly shifting wing. “Turn it off!”

Sherlock hits the switch and there’s just the faint light from outside, the lights of London at night sneaking in past the filmy curtains. Lestrade sighs and shifts again, both wings relaxing and then flinching up as they brush the silk sheets.

That’s just about all he can stand. Sherlock darts around the bed, past John’s restraining arm and kneels to peer at Lestrade’s tired face. “Well?”

“Well what?” Lestrade responds wearily, glaring at him. Sherlock squints at his face, trying to read past his exhaustion.

“It hurt you,” he says, wonder and excitement rising in him.

“Sherlock,” John says warningly.

“The light, John! It hurt him!” This is--this is brilliant! Of course he didn’t care, couldn’t be made to care about being seen right now; but how could light--? Sherlock reaches out to touch just the tip of one feather with just the tip of his finger, but his wrist is caught almost before he moves.

“Behave yourself,” Mycroft admonishes him, and Sherlock bares his teeth. Mycroft’s expression hasn’t changed from completely placid since arriving with the car; of course this is the only evidence Sherlock needs to know that Lestrade is very much in danger of disappearing into his brother’s hands forever.

“Is there anything we can do to make you more comfortable, Detective Inspector?” Mycroft asks, letting Sherlock go but not at all stepping away.

Another flinch, this one completely in the eyes, and before he can stop himself Sherlock snaps, “Don’t be an idiot, Lestrade. He’s my brother and he can keep secrets.”

“Mycroft Holmes, at your service,” Mycroft says, and even manages a not completely sneering smile. Sherlock is mildly impressed. “This is my residence, you are still in London, and you are in no danger, I assure you.”

Sherlock sees from the slight pause before Lestrade allows himself to blink that the man is in no way fooled, but is willing to go along for now. He doesn’t know if he’s reassured or not. Darting another look to Mycroft, he decides that he isn’t.

*********

Gabe takes a moment to gather himself--shirtless, shoeless, dry, hungry as hell--before he sits up, flaring his wings as much as is needed to keep them from coming into contact with anything. He expects all present to be watching them and not his face as he grimaces at even that, and so is not at all prepared when he meets Mycroft Holmes’ concerned gaze, just visible in the gloom.

“Thank you very much for your hospitality,” he says stiffly, “but I won’t be troubling you much longer.”

“It’s no trouble,” Mycroft Holmes says softly.

Sherlock’s face has lit up. “We can take you home--John and I. Now.”

“Should you--are you well enough to go?” Dr. Watson asks, soft and uncertain. “It’s still raining, and I don’t know--can we cover them up? Will that hurt?”

“I can get rid of them,” Gabe answers flatly, glaring sharply at Sherlock when he opens his mouth. “Just--it’ll take a minute. If you don’t mind,” he adds pointedly. It will take more than a minute, the way he’s feeling, and it will take even longer if they all stay in there staring at him.

“We will leave you to it,” Mycroft Holmes says, and escorts Sherlock out even as Sherlock splutters.

“No, I want--Lestrade! What do you mean, get rid of them? What--”

Dr. Watson stands up. “Um, well, if you do need something...”

“A minute,” Gabe says flatly, settling his feet on the thick carpeting.

Dr. Watson mutters, “Sorry, sorry,” as he leaves, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Silence descends. Taking a deep breath, Gabe looks around the room, at the bare night stand and low chest of drawers. It’s a guest room, that much is obvious, with... silk sheets, and heavy, classic furniture, and a somehow richer version of the usual ‘unused room’ scent.

He slides his hands along the silk, wondering idly about the thread count, and digs his toes into the soft carpeting. The silence is thick in his ears and he strains to hear London outside the closed window without getting up. The dull ache in his wings is fading slowly from his conscious thought, and he breaths in the room’s scent again, trying to guess at what elusive odour makes it different, is it a lack of mothballs?

With a deep, heavy breath he feels them shift, falling back into that other space, still achey from the beating they’d taken but no longer in danger of assault. The relief that bubbles up in him almost lets him forget for a moment that he will have to face them, Sherlock and John and the brother, and they will have questions at the very least.

*********

John is more than a little worried.

He doesn’t know what to do for Lestrade; he doesn’t know that anything has to be done for Lestrade. He knows that there are worse things that could have happened than being brought to Mycroft’s attention--well, possibly. Certainly Mycroft has been better about the situation than Sherlock.

“We should take him back to the flat and keep an eye on him,” Sherlock says, and John tries not to sigh loudly.

“He wants to go home,” Mycroft says mildly, and John restrains himself from rolling his eyes.

“Have you managed to bug his flat yet?” Sherlock asks with biting politeness, and John wistfully thinks of banging their skulls together.

But Mycroft is looking unusually solemn. “It would not be a good idea to allow any sort of evidence of the Inspector’s condition to surface.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrow. “Truce, then?”

Mycroft’s expression doesn’t change. “We leave it to him.”

If John is surprised, then Sherlock is completely flabbergasted. “You can’t be serious.”

“This is--not a situation to be handled,” Mycroft says, and holds up a hand when Sherlock starts to argue. “No. No questions. Absolutely no experimentation. Leave it to the Inspector.”

“How very kind of you,” Lestrade says, and John jumps.

They’re gone. The wings are gone, completely, as if they were never there. John knows his mouth is open but he can’t help it, not at all. It’s completely unreal. They are standing in the hallway of Mycroft’s house because Lestrade has wings, but he doesn’t, and John must be dreaming, because nothing makes sense.

“What did you do with them?” Sherlock demands, anger bright and sharp in his voice.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says reprovingly. “May I offer you a shirt and jacket, Inspector?”

Right. Shirtless. Wingless. John shakes his head and tries to make the world make sense.

“Thank you,” Lestrade says quietly, shoulders drooping a bit, and John can picture his wings drooping as well, as clearly as if he could see them.

“And then a ride, perhaps? Or a cab?”

“Have you gone completely mad?” Sherlock interrupts. “Lestrade! Where did they go?”

“A ride, and forget the shirt,” Lestrade says, completely ignoring Sherlock. “I’d like to go now.”

More flies with honey, John thinks, and has to grab Sherlock when he lunges at Lestrade. “Sherlock, stop it! Let him go home.”

“But--” Sherlock twists in John’s grip as Lestrade slips past them, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, and follows Mycroft down the hall and stairs. “Where did they go? I have to know!”

*********

It’s a blessedly quiet ride, and a short one. Gabe stares out the window and charts their course, sitting up so that his back doesn’t touch the seat.

He’s acutely aware of the complete lack of scrutiny on Mycroft Holmes’ part. It’s eerie. Any normal person--Gabe almost smirks at that thought--anyone else would be sneaking glances, or trying to break the silence to ask a question or several dozen.

But the car stops in the same silence it started, and Gabe is the one to break it. “Thank you.”

“Your things,” Mycroft Holmes says, and hands him a small shop bag. Gabe peers inside and sees his mobile, wallet, keys, and warrant card.

“Thank you,” he says again, with more warmth.

“If you--” Holmes hesitates, then meets Gabe’s eyes squarely. “If you should need any assistance in the future, particularly with my brother and his inevitable antics, you’ll find my contact information in your mobile.”

“Thank you,” Gabe says again, wondering with some amusement if he can get Holmes to respond properly.

As if reading his thoughts, Holmes smiles very slightly and says, “You’re welcome. Wait a moment.”

Before Gabe can react, he’s out of the car and walking ‘round to Gabe’s side with his umbrella up and, Gabe sees as Holmes opens his door, a jacket hanging over his arm. Without thinking, he asks, “Are you really related to Sherlock?”

Holmes very nearly almost laughs.

And Gabe laughs later, when he looks at his contacts and finds that Mycroft Holmes has followed suit with Gabe’s listing for Sherlock, putting himself down as “Tosser’s brother.”

*********

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

*********

Gabe realises they’re back before he opens his eyes.

Twitching, achey, and dragging uncomfortably on his duvet, onto which he had collapsed the night before, removing nothing but the borrowed jacket and his shoes. He winces and tries to lift them, to get clearance, and the muscles in his neck and upper back seize. The pain is lightning-hot and he actually sees white for a moment, a shocked and tortured gasp escaping his mouth, before he drops back onto the bed in purest agony.

Fuck!

His wings flail out and the right one knocks over the lamp on his night stand, sending another hard shock through it and him, and Gabe is cursing through tears and clawing at his bed, struggling to get upright and find something, anything, to make the pain stop.

He makes it onto his knees, leans forward onto the headboard and rests his head on his arms. His wings are still twitching, muscles up and down his neck quivering with the effort of holding them still, and who knows what sort of damage they’d taken last night when he’d been completely out? He manages to lift his head, swallowing back hard at a sudden urge to vomit, and turns his head just enough to look at the truly sad, sorry state of his feathers. No wonder they’re itching; they’re twisted and tangled up in each other, not a one lying flat.

“Hell,” he whispers, turning his head back and taking quick, shallow breaths. He’s going to have to straighten them out, and it’s going to take the entire fucking day, and he’s supposed to be at work.

He jolts upright at the thought and falls over, keening in pain, beyond misery. It had never been this bad; he’d never in his life hurt quite so badly. At some point he manages to grab his mobile from the night stand and, before he can make a call, sees that he’s received a text.

“4 days’ sick leave. Superiors apprised; doctor’s note arranged. Rest.” Courtesy of Tosser’s brother.

Gabe lets the mobile fall and groans into the mattress. If the man could only have arranged for some morphine to be left at the bedside, he’d be up for sainthood in Gabe’s book.

*********

It’s never very difficult to get John on board, but despite today’s especially firm protests, Sherlock has this well in hand.

“He eats takeaway between shifts and treats any and all injuries with an ice pack and a bottle of beer,” he says, watching John wince. “Surely we’re not leaving him on his own, John. He won’t survive it.”

And while that means he has to help with the shopping--because apparently takeaway isn’t good enough when Lestrade is ill--it also means that they are at Lestrade’s and all of his questions will be answered and, most importantly, there are no obstacles and no escape.

Sherlock has agreed to all of John’s rules regarding patient-visiting etiquette. They both know that doesn’t matter.

“Lestrade?” John calls, after knocking the door. “It’s John Watson, and Sherlock. Can we come in?”

“Before the neighbours get wind we’re checking up on you, and want to know what’s wrong?” Sherlock adds, smiling sweetly at John.

There’s no answer, and Sherlock scowls, sending out a quick text to Mycroft. “DI at work? SH”

The reply is gratifyingly quick; Mycroft has very few good points, but this is one of them. “DI has not left flat. MH”

Sherlock and John exchange glances, and then John knocks a little louder. “Lestrade?”

“I have a key,” Sherlock snaps, pushing John out of the way.

“Why have you got a key? And what if he has a chain?”

“Then we force it,” Sherlock says, not really listening. The door swings open and he steps in quickly, scowling the lonely, boring, workaholic stamp of Lestrade onto a flat that couldn’t be more boring. How could he have been suspected of hiding something so very, very interesting? There was more personality in John’s jumper than in Lestrade’s whole life!

John pushes past Sherlock to put the shopping in the small, unused-looking kitchen, and stiffens. Sherlock hears it at the same time; a tiny sound of pain, and the shifting of something heavy on an old bed.

“Brilliant,” Sherlock breathes when he and John collide at Lestrade’s bedroom door.

Huge, heavy, incredibly bedraggled wings, a two metre span at least; Sherlock’s hands twitch with the urge to grab them. He doesn’t notice the state of the man underneath them until John is snapping, “The paracetamol, Sherlock. And some water. Now!”

*********

“I honestly have no idea what to do here,” John says. “They didn’t cover this at school.”

He’s more relieved than he can say when Lestrade manages a small huff of laughter.

They’ve managed to sit him up, John and Sherlock on either side of him, holding him up by his arms and trying hard not to come into contact with the still-quivering wings. Sherlock is staring at the wing curving ‘round his shoulder now, barely breathing. John figures he can get Sherlock out of there later by suggesting he research feather and wing structure, and that’s one problem taken care of.

The others... John takes in Lestrade’s exhausted, pained expression, and tries not wince. Again.

“Anything we can do, to make you more comfortable?” he asks, recalling Mycroft’s words last night.

Lestrade sighs. “I... no. Thank you. For the...”

“Entirely selfish on our part, I assure you,” Sherlock interrupts. “Are they always in this state?”

“What?” Lestrade manages a tired sort of glare, and John tries to warn Sherlock off with a fierce expression. It completely doesn’t work.

“Wouldn’t it be better if the feathers were lying flat?” Sherlock persists, and Lestrade tries to draw back, ending in another flinch and short, quickly-controlled wing spasm. “I’m simply asking!”

“They’re sensitive to touch,” John reminds him.

“They’re sensitive to everything! If we can get them back to a somewhat, oh, neatened state--”

“It hurts,” Lestrade interrupts, his voice heavy and quiet. “Took me months before I could straighten ‘em out without... without hurting.”

“When was this?” Sherlock asks, and John wants so much to remind him of his promise not to interrogate Lestrade, but he knows it won’t do any good. Especially when he’s so interested, himself.

“Was a kid.” Lestrade shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Look, thank you very much, for the pills and everything--”

“Would it help?” John asks. He has to do something; he cannot leave Lestrade like this. “If we got them straightened out, like you said.”

Lestrade’s glare would be impressive if John wasn’t sitting close enough to see every line of pain and exhaustion in his face. “I’ll get it myself.”

“You can’t lift your arms yourself,” John snaps. “We can do it--look, if it helps? I cried through every physio session I had for my arm. And we’ve already seen you crying and fainting on the street,” he adds when Lestrade remains unconvinced.

“And I promise not to try to pull a single one out,” Sherlock says, and the look of horror on Lestrade’s face almost makes John swallow his tongue.

*********

It’s like setting up his own torture session.

No, it isn’t like, it is.

Gabe sits backwards on a wooden chair in the kitchen, hugging the back of the chair with both horribly tensed arms. John stands back a bit, to the right, and Sherlock hovers over his left wing, champing at the bit to start.

“So, get it done fast as we can, or go slow and careful?” Dr. Watson asks nervously, and Gabe has to bite the inside of his mouth.

“Slow,” he says, maybe even pleads, “Don’t hurry. “ And don’t make anything worse, he doesn’t add.

He’s refused a drink, though he’s rethinking that now, as the doctor sighs and takes a tentative step closer, and suddenly Sherlock’s hand is on his wing and Gabe shrieks, the heat racing up his wing and making both flare out wide and there goes the kettle, knocked off the counter and onto the floor.

“Christ,” he hears Dr. Watson say, and then Sherlock’s hand is back, determined and hot and Gabe swallows back a scream, but his arms slide up and he bites his forearm, closing his eyes tight as the tears leak out anyway.

The doctor’s hands are, if anything, hotter, though he is gentler, and he doesn’t flick the tips of feathers as he settles them back into place. Sherlock grumbles as Gabe’s wings twitch and flare and hunch and cycle through it all again, but he works faster than Dr. Watson, flipping feathers and working out tangles with a deft, rhythmic touch.

HIs muscles are screaming again, and he doesn’t notice that he’s bitten through his own skin until he tastes blood. Gabe shifts to bite his other arm, little white bursts of pain like stars gone nova blooming all over his wings, radiating up and down each separate feather.

It lasts just over an hour, with Sherlock finishing up faster and moving to help Dr. Watson. By the end of it both of Gabe’s arms sport multiple bleeding bites and his back is a nightmare-scape of twisted muscle, and Gabe’s face is soaked with sweat and tears. He can feel sweat rolling down his neck, down his back, and he twitches hard when someone presses a cool, wet cloth to the back of his neck.

“Relax,” Dr. Watson admonishes him, and then laughs uncertainly. “I mean, as much as you can.”

“Shoot me,” Gabe pleads, his voice hoarse and strained. “My gun is--”

“More pills, more water, some food, and we’ll work on your back,” Sherlock says, brisk and yet satisfied. Gabe wants to hate him, but he only has energy enough to beg for death.

The doctor brings the cloth up to wipe ‘round his ears and down again, between his shoulder blades, carefully avoiding the joining of his wings to his back. He shudders anyway, and bites back a moan.

“And I’m going to have to bandage up your arms, too,” Dr. Watson says, wiping along Gabe’s lower back and then urging him up. “Let me see. Your chin’s red.”

“My mouth tastes like death,” Gabe mutters, and Sherlock has the gall to chuckle. But he brings Gabe a glass of water and two more pills, and Dr. Watson wipes Gabe’s chin like a parent with a messy toddler before he sets to cleaning up Gabe’s arms.

He takes the pills, drinks the water, and breathes deeply for several minutes before he can make himself say, grudgingly and with great dislike, “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome, Gabriel,” Sherlock says smugly, standing back enough that Gabe has to whip his head ‘round to glare at him, and that hurts like hell. The doctor chokes a bit and hides his face.

“It’s not funny,” Gabe says, pain robbing his voice of some of its intended strength.

“No, I wouldn’t say funny,” Sherlock says musingly, “I would say appropriate.”

“It’s not funny,” Gabe says again, tensing up.

“Enough, Sherlock.” Dr. Watson gets up and stretches his own arms and back. “Tea? Gab--Lestrade, you must be starved.”

“No, why not?” Gabe says. “Let’s be on a first name basis. You’ve already tortured me. Why not? Call me Gabe, not Gabriel,” and he glares at Sherlock.

“All right, Gabe,” Dr. Watson says easily, “and I’m John, then. But it’s not over yet; we’ve still got to work on your back.”

He’s not going to have a drink; he’s going to have several dozen.

*********

“How is he?” Mycroft asks when Dr. Watson picks up the phone.

“Passed out, thankfully,” Dr. Watson replies, sounding tired and discouraged. “They’re still--I mean, they haven’t gone, like they did the other night.”

Mycroft taps his umbrella on the floor. “Does he need anything?”

“Better curtains, maybe. We tacked up some sheets when he tried rolling out of the light and knocked over the night stand again. I’m afraid, oh, they’re going to break or something; I don’t know anything about wings. It’s not covered--”

“Curtains. Anything else?” Mycroft knows the doctor has worked very hard today, but he has no desire to listen to him babble.

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll wait until he wakes up.”

“Sherlock is behaving himself,” Mycroft says, with just a slight inflection of questioning.

“He’s fine,” Dr. Watson says curtly. “He’s been quite good to Gabe.”

“Gabe?” Mycroft repeats. His umbrella goes still.

“He prefers it to Gabriel,” Dr. Watson says with just a hint of awkwardness. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know.”

“He keeps it very close.”

“You knew.” Mycroft doesn’t know why Dr. Watson is pushing this, but he has gone above and beyond today, and deserves a bit of latitude.

“I respect his desire for secrecy,” he says simply. “Inasmuch as I can.”

*********

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right now, this is pretty much writing itself. I hope to continue very quickly, but this seemed the best point to stop this particular chapter. I'm not actually enjoying torturing poor Gabe.


	3. Chapter 3

*********

When Gabe wakes up, there are thick grey curtains over his windows, and his night stand is gone.

It’s not a bad trade.

His back is, somehow, aching worse than his wings, and he’s almost surprised by how grateful he is for that. But everything, every single feather, is back to where it should be, and while they hurt like hell at least they don’t itch anymore.

Gabe takes a moment to breathe deep in relief before he begins the long, painful process of standing up.

Flaring his wings, moving right arm, then left, onto his knees, straightening up with help from the headboard, pause, breathe, rolling his head back on his neck--no, bad idea, that--left leg off the bed, follow with right, bare feet on worn carpeting, standing, yes, wings tucked up and shoulders hunched, can’t help that--

He’s standing. By himself. With a tiny grin he mutters, “It’s a miracle!”

Moreover, he seems to be alone, no looming doctors or consulting detectives with grabby hands threatening more pain. Gabe is considerably more cheerful than he can remember being in days, and shuffles off to the kitchen in the hope that Sherlock and Dr. Watson--no, John, they’re on a first name basis now--in the hope that Sherlock and John have left him something edible, and maybe a beer or three.

He stops short when he finds John and Mycroft Holmes sitting at the table.

*********

For a long moment, John stares at Gabe, unable to believe that he’s up and moving when he was so completely helpless five hours ago. But for the lack of a shirt, the bandaged arms, and, of course, the wings--now neat, almost fluffy--he’s almost back to John’s reassuring image of Detective Inspector Lestrade.

“Hello,” Gabe says, nodding to him and to Mycroft.

“Good afternoon,” Mycroft says smoothly, and stands up. “Have a seat?”

A stubborn look rises and fades from Gabe’s face and he says, “Yeah, thanks,” and walks into the kitchen, swinging the chair ‘round carefully and sitting with his arms on the back again. John watches him carefully and sees that his back is still bad, and his neck too, but that’s going to take time to work out. Oh, and paracetamol. John jumps up to grab the bottle of pills and a glass for water.

“Cheers,” he says, handing them to Gabe, who mutters some thanks and downs the pills quickly. He has a greater range of motion than before, John notes with some relief.

“So,” John says, and doesn’t let his expression change when Gabe glares at him. “How are you feeling?”

“I don’t want to make your ears bleed,” Gabe replies, and John snorts. “But, yeah. A lot better. “ He looks down at his arms. “Thanks.”

“It was nothing,” John says, which, as it turns out, is perfectly the wrong thing to say.

Gabe’s wings flare just a bit as he sits up straighter, jaw tight and eyes narrow. “It’s not nothing to give up your time tending to some freak of nature--”

“You’re not a freak,” John protests.

Gabe almost laughs. “Do you know what the word means?”

“Anomaly, perhaps, is more fitting,” Mycroft interjects, and John and Gabe both jump; clearly they’d both forgotten he’s still there. “Although, only at certain times, it seems.”

“Well,” Gabe mutters, and stares down at his arms again.

John darts a quick glance at Mycroft, who is watching Gabe with an expression that John can only recognise as concern because of the times he’s seen it leveled at Sherlock.

“They--I mean, you can’t--” John hesitates, but Gabe hasn’t looked up and he plunges on. “They’re still here.”

“Kind of know how Sherlock feels now, whenever I talk,” Gabe says, and John fights the urge to feel annoyed, because he’s so relieved that Gabe’s still willing to joke. He clears his throat and looks up, a sort of rueful amusement in his dark eyes. “I can make them go, but they... they hurt, and they won’t stay away. Because of that.”

“Where do they go?” John asks.

Gabe rolls his eyes. “I don’t know. They just go. Somewhere.”

“Can you still feel them?” He knows he’s taken over Sherlock’s interrogation duties, and he knows there’ll be trouble because of it, but he can’t help himself. Gabe’s talking, and if Sherlock isn’t here to hear it, that’s Sherlock’s problem.

“Not really. I mean, yeah, but... like you know your nose is there. You don’t always feel it, but it’s always there.”

“On another plane,” Mycroft murmurs, and they both look at him again.

“Right,” Gabe says, a bit uncertainly. “Somewhere else. But they don’t--they don’t hurt, usually. They don’t feel much of anything.”

“Except when they’re here,” John says. “Then they even feel the light.”

Gabe is getting uncomfortable; he’s shifting in his seat, and that can’t be pain, because the pills should be kicking in. “They’re just sensitive. Go so long without feeling anything, and suddenly...”

“Like walking out in sunlight after being in complete darkness for days,” John says, and Gabe smiles a little.

“Try years,” he says, “And you’ve got it.”

Years, John thinks, shaking his head. “I can’t believe you let us touch them.” Mycroft whips his head ‘round and glares, and John stares back at him in surprise.

“Didn’t seem like I had much choice,” Gabe is saying wryly. “Where is Sherlock, by the way? Not getting equipment of any sort, I hope.”

“Library,” John says, looking between him and Mycroft. “He’s researching wings.”

“Not on his phone?”

“He wants a lot of reference material at hand.” John is going to have to watch his back, or a big black car might run him down on the street. Mycroft has stopped glaring outright, but there is a huge, freezing silence between them.

Gabe is shaking his head. “No. No, I don’t want him poking at me; they’re finally to the point where I can move them without screaming, and they only hurt a bit more in this light. No. He’s not coming back here.”

“You may find it difficult to stop him,” Mycroft says mildly, and shoots one more warning, poisonous look at John. “Would you prefer to evade him?”

*********

Sherlock Holmes, with books on wings. Gabe will take another feather-sorting session over that. “What do you mean?” he asks.

“You are welcome to return to my residence,” Mycroft Holmes says quietly, looking down at his umbrella--he has the damn umbrella with him. “It has certain advantages, including being unknown to your colleagues.”

“What?” Gabe says again. Holmes looks up at him, frowning minutely.

“Your doctor’s note is for food poisoning, and while your superiors were content with that and a phone call from a physician, Sergeant Donovan has texted twice, promising to check on you, to make sure you haven’t died.”

Gabe closes his eyes. Of course Sally would check up on him. She knew exactly how many people could be counted on to do so; he didn’t need any fingers on a hand to count them.

“You’re checking his texts?” John says, and Gabe opens his eyes in time to see a surprisingly eloquent eyebrow raise from Holmes.

“Someone ought to have been,” Holmes says, with perfect mildness.

He doesn’t want to leave his flat. It’s his, and like anyone in a bad situation, he wants to be on his own ground. But he can’t possibly face Sally; not when he can’t be sure he can keep his wings gone, not when he needs...

He needs the Yard to be normal. He needs to keep something safe. It’ll be bad enough with Sherlock and John; he can handle that, though, if he has the Yard.

And again, Sherlock and books on wings. Staying in his flat is worse than painting a target on his back; it’s painting a target and then waiting in the trap.

“I’m going to need a minute,” he says with a deep sigh. The two other men leave the room, John looking back at him worriedly. Gabe closes his eyes again and tries to focus; breathing deliberately and splaying his hands on the table, feeling the grain of the wood, the scratches and gouges from careless handling. His chest falls and rises against the hard back of the chair; weak, indirect sunlight heats his left hand slowly.

They’re falling back, fading, but it’s not smooth. Even straightened they ache, and it’s like they’re blinking in and out, which feels to him like unpredictable jolts of electricity and heat. He grits his teeth against a gasp and a curse and lets them flare, pain flashing down his back and up his neck, and feels them settle more solidly in reality.

“Come on,” he mutters, and slides his hands over the table top as he shifts and curls his toes against the floor. He hears, from the other room, something tapping like high heels, or a single high heel, and he recognises it suddenly as Mycroft Holmes’ umbrella. In that moment he feels the weight disappear; his wings settle back, but they’re still very present, to his mind.

He’s going to have to wear a shirt. He can’t flex his shoulders without feeling them twitch closer to reality, and somehow he has to get through an entire car ride with cloth pressed up against them.

Gabe can’t remember a time he’s been so close to losing control. He stands up, swaying a bit, and considers having another beer just for the hell of it.

*********

The wings are gone again. Mycroft relaxes his grip on his umbrella, even though he’d prefer to do the opposite. Gabriel Lestrade’s eyes are darting from the table top to him to John; his shoulders are hunched and his arms are tightly crossed. “Are you quite all right?” Mycroft asks, his own muscles tensing sympathetically.

One quick darting glance from those dark eyes. “I don’t know that I’ll--that they’ll stay gone. For any length of time.”

“Maybe you should stay,” Dr. Watson says, and Mycroft heroically refrains from stabbing him through the foot.

“If you would rather not take the chance,” is all he says. He was honest, and serious, in saying that they must leave these choices up to Gabriel. He tracks the glances again; Gabriel is concerned about Sherlock, but more so about the sergeant. Not entirely unexpected; Sherlock already knows, and Ms. Donovan does not.

“Don’t text him,” Gabriel says suddenly to Dr. Watson. “Wait for him here. No; he’ll smash something. Text him after I’m gone.”

“I won’t let him smash anything,” Dr. Watson says, grinning slightly.

“Don’t let him nick anything, either,” Gabriel continues, “Give us five minutes, all right? Tell him he had hours to look at them; he doesn’t get to poke at them again.”

“Should I be taking this down?”

Mycroft smiles to himself. He quite likes the image of Sherlock arriving at Gabriel’s flat, finding that his newest toy has escaped his tender care. “Perhaps you should pack something, Inspector.”

Dr. Watson looks at him quickly; he hasn’t, and won’t, escape scrutiny there. But Mycroft can’t find it in himself to care.

When Sherlock storms his little house--and he will, there is no doubt whatsoever regarding that--Gabriel will already have been made welcome and comfortable, and have been treated with courtesy and respect rather than vulgar curiosity. Mycroft would like for Gabriel to judge him on his own merits, and not to mark Sherlock’s inconsiderate behavior a Holmes’ trait.

Gabriel packs hurriedly, wincing and pausing every so often to ease muscles in his back. Mycroft helps as much as he dares; he’s folding an old, green jumper when Dr. Watson helps Gabriel get into a loose, button-down shirt.

He removes it immediately upon shutting the door to the car, though. “It’s too much,” he explains to Mycroft, sitting carefully away from the seat.

“I understand,” Mycroft reassures him, to which Gabriel snorts.

“I doubt it.”

They ride in silence for a while; it’s just after five o’clock and the traffic is godawful. Gabriel clears his throat suddenly and asks, “Why are you doing this? Not that I’m not grateful,” he adds, looking sideways at Mycroft.

“No, you’ve made that clear, multiple times,” Mycroft says easily, and feels the corner of his mouth quirk up as Gabriel mock-bows.

“You didn’t answer.”

What to say? Mycroft doesn’t have an answer; he hasn’t had time to think about it himself. But he wants to honour Gabriel’s courage. It isn’t easy, particularly for a man with such a secret, to trust someone who is little more than a stranger. “What else could I do?” he asks. “It’s so unlikely a situation... How could I not want to be a part?”

Gabriel nods, turning to stare out the window, and Mycroft resents the loss of his steady gaze. “I suppose.”

“After all, it isn’t every day you discover that an acquaintance has been hiding a magnificent pair of wings,” he says, allowing a small smile to show when Gabriel looks at him again.

“My life might be easier if it was,” Gabriel replies after a long pause, and then he smiles back.

*********

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

*********

There’s a moment when Gabe tenses, prepared to demand that Holmes pull the car over, his wings pulsing with the need to push through, but he chokes them back and holds them with all his fevered concentration.

He isn’t aware of the car pulling smoothly into the garage, or of Mycroft Holmes undoing his seatbelt until the man is leaning over him to push the car door open, telling him in a low, urgent voice, “Gabriel, you can get out--”

He does, scrambling out the door and turning ‘round again as it closes to lean on the roof, his wings flaring out so quickly they snap in the echoing silence, a sharp, more organic sound than the shutting door. Gabe slumps forward, the weight pulling hard on his shoulders, and rests his forehead on his arms, breathing deep.

The other door shuts. Gabe looks up wearily into Holmes’ impassive but somehow still sympathetic face.

“This is a bloody nightmare,” he says.

“Straightening them hasn’t worked?”

Gabe swallows and lets his head fall forward again. “No, it worked. It’s just--they still hurt.”

There doesn’t seem to be much more to say than that. Gabe is already cringing somewhere in his mind from the sheer amount of whinging he’s been doing the past two days.

“Considering how much physical trauma they’ve been through, I find myself a bit shocked that you are still standing,” Holmes says in an oddly dry tone. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment...”

Gabe listens to his footsteps, to the door into the house open and shut, before shivering suddenly in the cool air. The movement causes another jarring bite of pain, but he ignores it in favour of hitting his head very lightly against his folded, wrapped arms.

A nightmare. Can’t keep them back for twenty minutes together, can’t exist without aching so much he sounds like a sick toddler, can’t stay in his own flat like an adult but has to throw himself on the hospitality of a near-stranger...

It’s the last that gets him thinking, because Mycroft Holmes is a stranger. He knows the man’s name, and now, where he lives. What does he do? How is it he has all this time to cater to the needs of a, how did he put it? Anomaly. Why is it that Gabe trusted him so completely, from minute one, to let him take Gabe home and then take him back here? Fine, yeah, Sherlock might’ve dug out a microscope and scalpel, given enough time, but Gabe knows the man well enough to know that’s what he’d do. He doesn’t know what Holmes is up to; doesn’t know enough about him to hazard a guess.

He’s a Yarder. A Detective Inspector. He doesn’t do what Sherlock does--no one does, but he gets hunches. Intuition, which is just putting together what he sees--and does not observe, thank you, Sherlock--and coming up with an answer that he can’t quite support, not with evidence, not yet and sometimes not ever.

And when the door opens again, and Mycroft Holmes calls out, “Inspector?”, Gabe knows that he has put his trust in the man because, for whatever reason, all the evidence he’s seen and hasn’t observed points to Holmes being someone he can trust.

Maybe it’s just that he’s so accustomed to trusting anyone called Holmes. “He’s my brother and he can keep secrets,” indeed.

*********

Gabriel carefully angles his wings in through the door, and Mycroft holds his breath.

They’re too large, surely, to fit; even with such careful maneuvering. But Gabriel somehow ducks and sidles past the jamb and over the threshold with a grace that belies the heart-wrenching exhaustion Mycroft witnessed just a moment ago.

He had expected that Gabriel would make them disappear again. Seeing them still present makes his hands itch.

Gabriel looks around and a small, incredulous smile tips the corners of his mouth. “You got it ready for me?”

He’s merely pulled the drapes and turned on a few smaller lamps for visibility. Had the house not been climate-controlled, he’d have done something along those lines too; installed a system overnight? The gentle lamplight hides the lines of pain and weariness in Gabriel’s face, and makes his wings glow.

Yes, perhaps he would have.

“Can I get you anything?” Mycroft asks, as Gabriel slowly makes his way further into the house, curiosity lighting up his features. His arms are still crossed, and his shoulders still hunched, but he seems more open than Mycroft has yet witnessed.

“No, well, I should probably text Sally, let her know I’m not at home. So she doesn’t go out of her way.”

Mycroft has to steel himself before walking over to hand Gabriel his things. Close enough to see the detail of layered feathers, of tight and tensed muscles under pale skin. He knows that no expression shows on his face.

Gabriel texts quickly, with a fluidity that Mycroft appreciates. He asks, “Will she wonder where you are?”

“If I leave it vague, she’ll figure it’s none of her business,” Gabriel says, his dark eyes flicking up to meet Mycroft’s. “Which it isn’t, so that’s all right.”

“Right,” Mycroft echoes softly. He watches Gabriel shift his shoulders, trying to work tension out of the muscles as he goes back through his older texts, and he suddenly tenses again. “Something wrong?”

“Kitty’s out,” he says, “all charges dropped.”

“Ah,” Mycroft says, and Gabriel stares.

“Gruner can’t even be out of hospital yet,” he says, suspicion making his voice low and gravelly. Mycroft looks at his umbrella, leaning casually against the wall by the stairs. “What did you--you did this, didn’t you? Somehow.”

“The man had my brother viciously beaten, and would have had him arrested for housebreaking,” Mycroft says, letting distaste colour his tone rather than the frustrated rage he felt rising again at the thought. “And that is nothing compared to what he did to Ms. Winter.”

“That’s a yes?”

“I may have influenced events,” Mycroft says, beginning to turn away. He doesn’t jump out of his skin when Gabriel’s hand lands on his shoulder, but he would have liked to do so.

“How?” Gabriel demands, seeking answers in Mycroft’s expression, but he gives him nothing. “How much influence do you have?”

“Enough,” Mycroft says, with a gentler warning than he is accustomed to using. He doesn’t allow himself to react when Gabriel’s hand falls away from his arm.

“Why Kitty, too?” he asks quietly. “Why do you care about her?”

Mycroft doesn’t care about Kitty Winter. He can’t. There are thousands of women who live desperate lives, ruined in one way or another by predatory human beings, in London alone. He can’t care for all of them. He can’t spare that sort of attention.

“She helped my brother,” Mycroft answers, feeling out now the impulse he’d made then without thought. “And it didn’t seem--it wasn’t just.”

“Because Gruner might’ve lost his looks, and his fiancee, but he’s got his wealth and his power still at the end of it,” Gabriel adds, and the tension in Mycroft’s body flees.

“And Ms. Winter has so little at the end of it,” he continues, “that it seems beyond mere cruelty to allow more to be taken from her.”

“At the hands of the law, which let her down in the first place.”

They stare at each other, reading their own thoughts in each other’s faces. Mycroft thinks that there is so little one can actually do in this world; the weight of inertia swings even the best intentions for progress back ‘round in the end. But for one person, for one life...

“Completely worth it,” Gabriel mutters, his eyes distant, and Mycroft almost laughs for the sheer, breathless joy of it.

Instead he smiles politely and steps back. “Would you like something to eat or to drink, Gabriel?”

*********

John texts Sherlock as soon as the car leaves, and goes straight back to Baker Street.

He considers barricading only briefly.

His phone is going off incessantly, but he doesn’t bother to check the texts; Sherlock will tell him all the same things to his face. Mostly, he thinks, it will be insults and threats directed at his brother, and a few choice comments about John allowing Mycroft to make off with Gabe.

However, when Sherlock does return to their flat, without any books, he must have taken it for granted that John has read those texts because he asks, “Why aren’t you ready?”

“Ready?” John repeats.

Sherlock throws his hands up in a dramatic display of disappointment. “We’re going to Mycroft’s, John! Now! Why are you ignoring my texts?”

“We’re not going to Mycroft’s.”

“I thought you liked Lestrade,” Sherlock says, and John has to cut him off.

“He’ll be fine at Mycroft’s. He’ll be safer with someone to look after him--”

“Not if it’s Mycroft!”

“Do you really think your brother is going to, I don’t know, order his autopsy?”

“No,” Sherlock says reluctantly, “but only because he’d have to share Lestrade with someone else then!”

John stares at him. “You could have been talking about yourself just now.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, really. You don’t want Mycroft to ‘have’ Gabe, but Mycroft isn’t--” John stops abruptly, remembering the icy glare.

“Mycroft isn’t what? Possessive? Capable of convincing Lestrade that he wants to stay locked up in his little house forever? You don’t think so?”

John sits back in his chair slowly. “Well, when you put it like that...”

Sherlock stares at him for a long moment before squatting next to John’s chair. “Tell me everything.”

*********

Gabriel. It doesn’t sound so bad when he says it.

“Lead on,” Gabe says, and waits until Holmes turns away before he shrugs and tries to resettle his wings in some way that doesn’t cause immediate agony.

He’s holding them close, to keep from brushing into walls or doors, which just makes them more stiff and prone to flaring. That, in turn, makes it harder to get them tucked back in that other space.

The kitchen is a modern, open affair with a large breakfast bar instead of a table. Probably there’s a dining room out the other door. Gabe sinks onto a stool gratefully and leans on the table, looking down at his bandages.

“Should we change them?” Holmes asks.

“Probably,” Gabe says, and feels suddenly like laughing. He doesn’t know why, and so bites the inside of his cheek until the impulse passes and works on getting the plasters off. After a moment, Mycroft Holmes joins him, sitting opposite, setting down a small first aid kit.

He makes the smallest possible sound when he sees the first bite wound, and Gabe looks up in surprise. But no; Holmes wasn’t there when...

“From the feather-sorting,” he says, and raises an eyebrow at the hard set of Holmes’ jaw. “Um.”

“I trust Dr. Watson disinfected them?” he says darkly, ripping open an alcohol pad and swabbing gently. Gabe flinches at first, but it doesn’t hurt much at all, and Holmes’ touch is swift and sure.

“Yeah, he...” Gabe trails off, not sure why the atmosphere has turned icy. He watches Holmes bandage them up again, trying and finding no opportunity to insist that he can do it himself.

“It must have hurt terribly,” Holmes says, so quietly that Gabe isn’t certain he knows he’s spoken aloud.

“It had to be done, but,” he pauses, “I think that’s why I can’t--why they won’t stay gone. It still hurts.”

Gabe’s accustomed to Sherlock’s penetrating stares, but he’s got nothing on his brother. “They hurt less when they’re gone, you’ve said.”

“I can’t keep them gone,” Gabe repeats, starting to get frustrated.

“But every moment they are gone is a moment they aren’t exposed to further painful sensation and danger.”

“And?”

“How do you make them go?” Holmes asks.

Gabe shuts his eyes and sighs. “I have to--how do I explain this? I make myself focus on what’s supposed to be real, like what I can feel, what I can see and hear and smell. And I try not to feel them, and then they, well, go.”

“And you can’t do that now, because you are too aware of them.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Your hand, please.”

“What?” Gabe says, and stares blankly at Holmes. “My hand?”

“If you would, please.” And he’s holding his hands out, palm up, waiting patiently for Gabe to acquiesce. After an interminable moment, in which Gabe questions his sanity more than once, he puts his right hand into Holmes’ grasp.

His hands are warm and smooth, and as he turns Gabe’s hand over so that it’s facing palm up, he feels smooth metal. “You wear a ring?”

“For the same reason you do, I imagine,” Holmes murmurs. “I prefer to have things uncomplicated.”

Which is why he’s going so far out of his way to help a winged man. Gabe pushes the thought away, aware that it is neither charitable nor entirely fair.

Holmes holds his hand so that his curve ‘round it, and then he pushes both thumbs firmly into the palm, with enough pressure that it’s not at all ticklish. He works from the inner curve of Gabe’s palm to the edges, and then from base to the tip of each finger, even taking a moment to work on the pad of his thumb.

“Your left, please.”

Gabe lets him take his other hand, his right lying limply on the table, and he watches as Holmes repeats the same process, deviating only in sliding the ring from his finger. Gabe shivers at the loss of it but doesn’t protest.

When Holmes rubs his thumb over Gabe’s again, he expects that he’s finished, but instead Holmes takes Gabe’s right hand again, holding both. He runs his thumbs around Gabe’s palms in a light, teasing circle, before following the lines with the same gentle touch, leaving little sparkles of sensation in Gabe’s suddenly very sensitive hands.

Now they’re nearly ticklish, each light touch making his fingers twitch, but it’s not enough for him to actually want to pull away. Gabe’s view has narrowed to those elegant hands under his, working with care and precision. Holmes lays his right hand down to run the tips of his fingers along Gabe’s left palm, from inner wrist to the base of his fingers, and then continues, so that Gabe’s fingers curl reflexively and their tips nearly catch and hold. He then repeats the process with Gabe’s right hand, leaving the left to lie abandoned on the table top.

He takes both of Gabe’s hands again, and Gabe shivers as he lifts them, palms up, and blows gently on them both. His hands are tingling, not unpleasantly, as Mycroft Holmes continues to hold them, though he’s no longer doing anything more than that.

Gabe realises then that his wings are gone.

*********

tbc

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Mycroft has a hand!kink. WHO KNEW?
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> (John.)


	5. Chapter 5

*********

Mycroft’s attention is definitely diverted. Sherlock and John receive texts from his PA and security team as they approach the house, but Sherlock is not in any way fazed and John not in any way deterred. He still doesn’t believe that Mycroft is going to do anything sinister to Gabe, but he has been forced to wonder what exactly he is planning to do.

Also, he’s been left out of enough home invasions; it’s nice to be included for once.

Not that it’s one of the exciting ones. Sherlock marches straight to the front door and produces yet another key to a house that is not his own, although it might make slightly more sense that he has a key to his brother’s home than to Gabe’s. They sail on through into a clean, sparse foyer that leads directly to a dark front room, and a small sound of surprise leaves John stumbling to get out of Sherlock’s way as he veers left, to the kitchen, and stops in shock.

Mycroft and Gabe--wingless and shirtless yet again--sit across from one another at a small breakfast bar, Gabe’s tense hands caught up in Mycroft’s white-knuckled grip. John stares blankly into a world that seems to have tilted about one hundred and eighty degrees.

“What are you doing to Lestrade?” Sherlock demands, striding forward with both hands out, as if to physically separate the two men. Gabe puts an end to that by jumping up and backing away, leaving Sherlock and Mycroft to stare each other down.

“I am attempting to ease the tension that is exacerbating his condition,” Mycroft says flatly, standing up as if the inch of height he has on Sherlock will convince his brother to back off. John moves slowly closer to Gabe, giving the brothers a wide berth.

“Ease the tension?” Sherlock repeats, disbelief and disgust hanging from every word. “How very kind.”

Mycroft’s expression is pure ice. “Surely you didn’t expect to find that I am as poor a host as yourself.”

“I didn’t expect to find you seducing my Detective Inspector!” Sherlock shouts, and John wants to sink through the floor. He can’t keep from sneaking a look at Gabe, though, who has flushed so red it’s almost alarming. Mycroft opens his mouth to respond--from the ugly way his lips curl when Sherlock tosses out that “my,” it’s not likely to be a polite, civil servant response--and John really, really can’t take any more.

“This is completely and utterly mortifying,” he announces, “and I, for one, would like a beer and to forget it ever happened. Gabe?”

“Oh god yes,” Gabe says immediately, some of the tension leaving his shoulders.

“There’s wine in the cellar,” Mycroft says stiffly, and John and Gabe exchange a look that clearly says: any port in a storm.

*********

Because getting pissed is going to settle this. Sherlock thinks John might’ve remembered where they are, and concluded that inhibiting oneself around an extraordinarily gifted manipulator like Mycroft was a bit not good.

“You, with me,” he orders Lestrade, grabbing his arm and yanking when the man startles and tries to shy away.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says warningly, and Sherlock wants to scream at him, to remind him that he is supposed to be the very definition of subtlety, that he isn’t supposed to be drooling over Detective Inspectors--and certainly not ones who work with Sherlock--and that, if he must, then at the very least he can refrain from doing it so very obviously.

But Mycroft is not his problem right now--well, he is, but Lestrade is the solution, if Sherlock can just get the man away for two seconds to talk to him. So he tugs Lestrade along, saying, “A moment of your time, Lestrade,” in the most sarcastic and biting tone he can manage.

He drags Lestrade into a small office off the living room and shuts the door firmly. “You’re an idiot.”

“Ta,” Lestrade replies, crossing his arms and smiling in his most infuriating fashion.

“I don’t say this often, so listen,” Sherlock snaps, lowering his voice and stalking close enough that Lestrade backs up, right into Mycroft’s terrifyingly ugly and unused modern style desk. “I didn’t explain who my brother was, and that is my fault. But--”

“You told me I was an idiot to distrust him,” Lestrade interrupts in a faux-helpful tone.

“I called you an idiot for trying to pretend nothing was wrong when he’d already seen exactly what was,” Sherlock snarls back. “Listen! I told you he can keep secrets, because that is what he does. He says he works for the government, but it’s more accurate to say he works as the government.”

Lestrade quirks an eyebrow. “Cabinet Office?”

“Officially, Department of Transport,” Sherlock says grudgingly, and Lestrade levels a flat stare.

“I’m supposed to be afraid of a traffic minister.”

“That’s his official position, I told you! Unofficially, he runs the government.”

“How does he manage that?”

“By managing it!” Sherlock looks back over his shoulder, at the door, and lowers his voice further, though he knows it won’t help. “He’s the central hub, if you will. He gets information from all of the other departments and puts it together. He’s the only one who can. He can judge in a second how traffic will affect health and immigration, sport. And more, how the effects of each will affect the effects of others.”

“You’ve lost me,” Lestrade says, and Sherlock steps back enough to fling his hands about without hitting anything.

“His position, like my job, is unique because his skill, like mine, is unique. Mine is deduction; his, omniscience.”

“Now you’re taking--”

“Half of the murders I’ve solved for you, he could have solved without leaving his chair,” Sherlock says flatly, looking anywhere but at Lestrade’s stunned face. “And I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”

“No,” Lestrade says slowly, sitting back on the desk, losing some of the tension in his posture. “I know that.”

“You have to be careful,” Sherlock begs, finally looking back at Lestrade, willing him to understand. “You have to know your own mind, because if you don’t, he’ll make it up for you. He has no compunctions about... about taking control for your own sake.”

“Sherlock.” Lestrade returns his look, and there’s something so bleak in it that Sherlock wants to get John because he doesn’t do emotions, and Lestrade knows that. “I’ve controlled this thing for more than twenty years, and now I can’t. Do you understand?”

Sherlock shakes his head slowly. “No.”

“I am not giving up my job; I am not giving up my life. No one, not God or the devil or Mycroft Holmes can take any of that from me. Not because of these stupid things--” Lestrade shrugs his shoulders, as if the wings were there to be shrugged. “I did it alone before, but I don’t have that luxury now, and I don’t have time, either. A sick note doesn’t last forever, you know?”

Sherlock is going to shake him. “John and I--”

“I will take all the help I can get, and Mycroft’s offering. All right?”

“Are you attracted to him?” The question bursts out of him, horrifying in that he is, in fact, asking and in that he genuinely doesn’t know. Lestrade gapes at him, and it’s suddenly plain to see that he hasn’t even thought about it, hasn’t realised at all, and Sherlock doesn’t know whether to chalk it up to Lestrade not knowing Mycroft and being otherwise occupied at the moment or to him being as bloody stupid as Anderson. Maybe both.

“If you sleep with my brother, our working relationship will suffer,” Sherlock says, his voice cracking just once.

*********

Is he--is he attracted to--

Gabe finally finds his voice. “He was massaging my hands; we weren’t necking on the sofa!”

“You may as well have been!”

And it’s as hilarious as it’s awful, because Sherlock is almost vibrating from the force of his concern and his disgust. Gabe had had a similar reaction when Donovan and Anderson broke it off. But at least there’d been something going on, there, and something that could’ve destroyed a marriage and a team.

But he takes pity, and tries to calm Sherlock down. “Think it through, will you, genius? If your brother is the all-knowing arm of the government, capable of solving every crime in London on his tea break--”

“I didn’t say every crime--”

“--then he’s a bit out of my league, yeah?” Gabe almost laughs, and winces a bit when his shoulders protest. Trust the Holmes brothers, anyway, to get him so wrapped up in their drama that he forgets his own.

“You are an idiot,” Sherlock says, and rakes his hands through his hair. “You don’t even realise. You’re a Detective Inspector, and you can’t assemble the facts of your own life.”

“Sherlock--”

“You’re ridiculously fit for a man of forty-six, dedicated to a job that would crush lesser men, successful even when you don’t call me in. What you lack in intelligence, you make up for in determination, and your humility is downright offensive. Not to mention, Gabriel, that you have somehow hidden a pair of wings from the entire world for nearly half a century!”

Gabe remembers Sherlock talking about being able to delete things, to strike them completely from his memory, and makes a mental note to figure out how to do that because Sherlock just called him fit, and everything about that is wrong. “Are we done?” he asks.

“Are you going to stay here?” Sherlock asks in return.

“Do you really think your brother fancies me?” Gabe asks brightly, just to see him flinch. He can’t deny that he feels a bit, well, strange after hearing what Sherlock has to say, though. Tingly, almost. He licks his lips and tries not to look Sherlock in the face.

*********

Mycroft looks up quickly when Sherlock and Gabriel re-enter the kitchen, noting Sherlock’s tight jaw--muted, thwarted anger--and Gabriel’s upturned gaze--gentle, almost paternal annoyance. He is going to stay. He hasn’t taken fright or offense to whatever it is Sherlock has said, and he could have said plenty. Mycroft’s knees feel weak.

“We’re leaving,” Sherlock snaps at John, sending a truly baleful look Mycroft’s way. “Apparently it’s no longer chaperoning when the morons in question are of an advanced age.”

Sheer willpower and years of practice keep Mycroft from lobbing the fruit bowl at him.

Sherlock storms out, of course, but John shuts the door quietly after calling a good night to both Mycroft and Gabriel, smiling at the latter. Mycroft goes to the lock the door behind them, hoping that peace has descended for the rest of the night. He returns to the kitchen and leans against the countertop near the sink.

Gabriel fixes him with an amused look. “Your brother thinks you’re trying to seduce me.”

“I’m aware,” Mycroft says curtly, refraining from crossing his arms. Gabriel stares at him, one eyebrow lifting up, and Mycroft imitates him, earning a bright, easy grin.

“Easy enough hypothesis to test, don’t you think?” Gabriel says, and leans right into Mycroft’s space, smelling of sweat and just a hint of antiseptic, and presses a sweet, chaste kiss to his lips. He means it half-jokingly, as a test of a hypothesis, but Mycroft is not letting him off so easily. He grabs Gabriel’s upper arms and keeps him close, pressing back with intent and letting his tongue dart out to touch Gabriel’s lips.

Gabriel makes a soft noise of surprise and Mycroft presses his advantage, opening his mouth to deepen the kiss and sliding one hand up to cradle Gabriel’s head, guiding him closer. Triumph lights up the darkness behind his closed eyelids and as Gabriel moves to touch him, to slide his hands up from Mycroft’s waist to his chest, he lets his other hand fall to rest on Gabriel’s lower back.

He gasps and breaks away from the kiss as Mycroft moves his hands again, reaching now to cradle sharp shoulder blades, rubbing up and down with gentle force. His hips move and Mycroft’s move to meet them, and they move again in tandem as Gabriel hides his face against Mycroft’s neck, gasping again harshly, with a little peaking cry, as his wings burst out, appearing in all their abrupt glory as his frame is wracked with shudders. Mycroft pulls him closer, murmuring soothingly, as he slides his hands up Gabriel’s back again and carefully feels the joints of wing to back.

“No, wait,” Gabriel says in a thick, slurred voice, looking up at Mycroft with wide, hazy eyes. His lips are wet and parted, and he’s panting, still shaking, clutching hard at Mycroft’s shoulders while he rocks his hips against Mycroft’s in a stuttering rhythm. It’s a lot; it might be too much, but Mycroft can’t resist tracing the undersides of both joints with his index fingers, as gently as possible.

Gabriel’s eyes close and he bites his lip, shaking harder, pressing himself so hard against Mycroft that they fall back against the counter, Mycroft holding Gabriel up. His hands have slipped down again, to Gabriel’s waist, and he lifts one to ruffle the slight, wispy feathers along the joint of Gabriel’s right wing. Gabriel moans loudly and tries to muffle it by pressing his face against Mycroft’s neck again.

“Hush,” Mycroft murmurs.

“Oh please, please,“ Gabriel gasps, writhing in his arms.

“Stop?” Mycroft asks, though he knows the answer, and he smiles when Gabriel shakes his head in a negative. “It’s different, isn’t it, when you’re not expecting pain?”

“Please,” Gabriel says again, and Mycroft drags the tips of his fingers through those soft feathers again, grabbing hold of Gabriel’s waistband to keep him from melting to the floor. His wings flare and fold tightly, and flare again, blocking and revealing the dim kitchen light in irregular stretches, making it seem all the more beautifully surreal.

Gasping and cursing, Gabriel pushes and scrabbles and cries out against Mycroft until his breath catches in his throat, and his head tips back, and his eyelids flutter. Mycroft pulls his taut body as close as he can, and Gabriel lets out a soft, broken moan as he comes. He collapses against Mycroft’s body, in his arms, and his wings flutter and shake with reaction. There are, Mycroft notes with wonder, tiny droplets of tears on his eyelashes.

He’s still gasping, eyes tight shut, as he rests in Mycroft’s arms. Mycroft ignores his own erection, nestled snugly into the hollow of Gabriel’s hip, as he stares at the quivering wings and presses a gentle kiss to the top of Gabriel’s head.

*********

tbc


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is all sex. Well, that and a lot of flirting, because goddammit, apparently Lestrade and Mycroft NEVER STOP TALKING. Sorry. Heed the warning, folks.

*********

Gabe feels shattered. If he moves, he’ll fall apart, but that would be beautiful, absolutely fucking brilliant.

Every muscle in his body is shaking. Mycroft--he’ll be damned if they aren’t on a first name basis now, too--Mycroft is tracing the line of his spine from lower to mid-back, hands moving infinitesimally higher with each circuit, and Gabe is at once terrified and desperate for him to touch the small, downy feathers on his wings again.

They’ve never felt like this. Nothing had ever felt like this, like every nerve in his body is straining for contact, like he’s been scraped raw and left to drown in sensation, his body being formed out of sensation and coming alive under every delicate touch. He shudders again, as Mycroft sighs and his chest rises and falls and his breath blows moist and warm on Gabe’s scalp.

He wants it again.

He mouths the skin just above Mycroft’s shirt collar, curls his fingers into Mycroft’s belt to keep him close; he makes a soft, whining noise when Mycroft begins to move against him, deliciously slow, because he wants it but it’s too much, too soon. But--

“Please,” he whispers, and licks the hinge of Mycroft’s jaw.

“Please?” Mycroft repeats, low and amused, but also breathless and so close, his hands are so close now, and Gabe is shaking with want. His wings curl inward, the long, tapering feathers brushing Mycroft’s knees, and it almost hurts.

“Don’t you want to?” Gabe whispers, breathing harshly on Mycroft’s ear. “Touch them, let them slide between your fingers.” So close, tracing figure eights just under the joints. Gabe catches himself before he starts sobbing in desperation, and licks his lips--so close to Mycroft’s face that he licks him, too--and whispers, “Could bend me over the table and put your mouth on them.”

That jolts him, gets Gabe the gasp and possessive grip he wants, and then those fantastically talented fingers are back, ruffling those same tiny feathers on the joints, pressing closer and massaging the delicate skin underneath. Guttural moans escape him and he sucks and kisses Mycroft’s throat, moving frenziedly against him, pleasure filling him up and making his muscles tighten, his wings flare and hold in their widest spread.

Mycroft bites his shoulder and Gabe sees an explosion of colour, realising then that his eyes are closed. He pulls and pushes his body closer to Mycroft, as if he could just push his way inside, and wants more than that, more than gentle, careful handling; he wants Mycroft to grab handfuls of feathers and pull. He wants him to bite.

And just like that, that fast, it’s past what he can bear, and Gabe almost collapses, crying and begging, “Stop, please, stop!”

Mycroft’s hand is on his jaw, trying to lift Gabe’s face from where he’s pressed it to his shoulder. Gabe lets him, feeling his other hand moving slow and soothingly on his lower back. He looks up, knowing there are tear-tracks on his cheeks, and meets Mycroft’s wide, blown-pupil gaze.

“Gabriel,” he whispers, and kisses him gently, chastely; as sweetly as Gabe had meant to kiss him before, and relief cuts through him, leaving him exhausted and weak. Gabe sighs into his mouth and lets Mycroft cradle his face with both hands, lets him kiss both of Gabe’s closed eyes and the few tears that yet escape them.

Pain makes a sharp return, striking in his shoulders like a flash fire and sweeping through his wings from joint to the farthest feather tip. He slides his own hands up Mycroft’s belly and chest to cradle his face and carefully return each caress.

Their mingled breaths slow, and Gabe opens his eyes again to meet Mycroft’s, blinking the last tears away.

*********

Mycroft strokes his thumb along Gabriel’s jaw and feels a heady, knee-weakening rush of tenderness when those beautiful dark eyes close. Entirely too much, and he knew it, but he’d gone along anyway--

Gabriel makes a soft noise and turns his head to press a kiss to Mycroft’s palm. “Help me put these away again?” he asks, his voice very soft and very tired, and Mycroft wills away what little of his lust remained after hearing Gabriel cry out in pain.

They step apart carefully, regretfully--at least on Mycroft’s part; he will make no surmise on Gabriel’s. Gabriel stumbles and his wings flare for balance, brushing Mycroft’s arm and the countertop, and Mycroft is ready to catch him when he gasps and almost falls flat on his face.

Guilt, concern, sympathy; they aren’t near enough to keep Mycroft’s body from rushing with heat as he helps Gabriel to sit on the nearer stool at the breakfast, remembering--”bend me over the table and put your mouth on them.” He bites the inside of cheek and keeps his hands steady and gentle on Gabriel’s back.

Gabriel’s ring is still resting on the wooden tabletop, and he puts his hands out easily for Mycroft to take. He shouldn’t be so eager to take them, to touch any part of him, so eager that it supersedes all the rules he’d set for himself, and even his common sense. But Gabriel’s hands, warm and rough, with his delicately shifting bones...

“I’m sorry,” Gabriel says quietly, and Mycroft looks up fiercely into that beautiful, haggard face.

“No,” he says firmly. “You mustn’t be sorry for anything.”

“Not even leaving you, ah--” Gabriel stops, but lifts his eyebrows meaningfully. Ridiculous, that Mycroft wants to kiss them, to trace them with his lips and tongue.

“This is hardly the time to be concerned about my condition,” he says dryly, and allows himself to smile at Gabriel’s surprised huff of laughter. He uses gentle pressure, digging his thumbs into Gabriel’s palms, enjoying the simple task as much as anything they’d done.

When he lifts Gabriel’s hands, Mycroft kisses each palm before breathing gently on them, and holds them still again. Looking up, he catches his breath; the wings are still there. Gabriel’s eyes are closed, his teeth worrying his lower lip, and Mycroft watches eagerly as the wings shimmer, almost, fading or falling back, slipping from sight like an after-image. Solid and real, then dreamlike, then gone. He’d expected--well, he isn’t sure what he’d expected, but something a bit more abrupt.

But the way they’ve just faded... Mycroft can almost see them, still, curving gently from Gabriel’s back. He swallows hard.

Gabriel shifts and pulls his hands from Mycroft’s reluctantly loosening grasp. “If you--do you mind, then, if I get a shower?”

“Not at all,” Mycroft replies automatically, standing quickly and thinking faster. “Would you prefer a bath?”

“No, I’m just--” Gabriel grins weakly as he stands. “If they pop out again, it’s probably better I’m not leaning on them.”

“Of course,” Mycroft murmurs and leads the way upstairs, to the master bedroom and bath. It’s the larger of the two in the house, and if the doors to the shower stall are left open, Gabriel should be fine if his wings are to reappear.

He leaves Gabriel to it, listening to the water start and allowing himself a moment to close his eyes, savouring a mental image or two. Then he shakes himself and goes to sit on the bed, pulling his Blackberry from the locked nightstand drawer to look over the work he’s let slide.

Mycroft prefers to work from his office, as the level of security at his home is dismal by comparison--but for good reason. Even he needs a space of his own, a place to hide, rest, or unwind. Sherlock accuses him of bugging 221B Baker Street regularly, but without much malice, as he knows Mycroft would consider doing so utterly, unthinkably offensive. Also, he couldn’t bear for Sherlock to retaliate in kind.

But that necessitates the Blackberry, which must be locked up when not in use, and further requires several passwords and may only access coded information, among various other restrictions. Mycroft detests the thing, but going to his office while Gabriel is still in need would be ridiculous. He’d never get anything done, and what if he returned to find his brother or the doctor touching Gabriel’s wings again?

The thought makes him scowl, while the rest of his mind is occupied translating codes and solving mostly minor, inconsequential matters. He becomes engrossed, so as to block out the image of Gabriel’s injured forearms, and the reason why they are injured, and hears but does not react to the sound of the water turning off.

“Completely can’t read any of that,” Gabriel says a gusty sigh, lying down sideways across the bed, so that he can look at the Blackberry and up at Mycroft with ease. Mycroft raises an eyebrow, turns to look at him, and freezes. Gabriel is naked, propped up on his elbows and looking at Mycroft with an innocently inquiring gaze. “Some of us had a five hour nap today.”

“I remember.” Mycroft looks at his dark, wet hair; at the smooth, unbroken expanse of his back. He can almost see where the wings would join, there at the shoulder blades, and imagines briefly that he can feel the delicate brush of feathers on his cheek.

“So, what is that?” Gabriel nods to the Blackberry. Mycroft had forgotten he is still holding it. “State secrets?”

“Possibly,” Mycroft says, looking down at the screen and quickly finishing up his coded directions. When it’s sent, he turns the device off and stows it in the nightstand.

“Possibly,” Gabriel mocks, rearing up and sitting back on his heels. Mycroft can’t not look, so he does, greedily and unabashedly, at Gabriel’s strong thighs and half-erect cock, at his hands bracing on his thighs, at his chest and neck and dear, beautiful, achingly familiar face. “Secrets are your thing, then.”

“My ‘thing’?” He’s lightheaded and giddy with lust and anticipation; he couldn’t stand to be pushed away again. Under Gabriel’s dark and interested gaze he stands, begins to remove his jacket, his cufflinks, his tie...

“You know, your kink.” Gabriel’s breath is coming faster, he’s no longer only half-interested. “What gets you going.”

Mycroft lets his trousers fall, thinking that over. “No, not... not really.”

“Winged man says otherwise.”

He’s laughing again, and how is it that Gabriel can make him laugh so easily? “I think you overlook your other charms, Gabriel.”

“If I’ve overlooked them, you haven’t had the chance to know them,” Gabriel argues, though his eyes are firmly focused on Mycroft’s hands, working loose the buttons on his shirt. “Unless it’s a wing kink, and your rent boys all wear ‘em.”

“I do not hire rent boys,” Mycroft says testily, letting his shirt fall and getting an exasperated groan as that reveals an undershirt. “That would be scandalous.”

“Especially when you booted them out in the morning, wearing nothing but wings.” Gabriel nods sagely, then catches his breath as Mycroft loses the undershirt. “Another half hour and you might actually be naked.”

“Why do you enjoy teasing me so much?” Mycroft asks, stripped of everything now but his socks. He doesn’t mind it; it’s just... “Is that your kink?”

“You do like secrets,” Gabriel says, watching Mycroft sit down on the edge of the bed. He finally reaches out, touches Mycroft’s shoulder and urges him to lie down, his gaze roaming Mycroft’s body as he does.

“I find it--” Mycroft gasps when Gabriel moves to straddle him, not touching, not touching him at all, though his shoulder still burns pleasantly with the memory of Gabriel’s hand. “Keeping secrets, without them keeping you; that’s impressive.”

“Impressive,” Gabriel mocks again, leaning down and bracing himself on both hands, those somewhere above Mycroft’s shoulders. His face, his lips, are mere centimetres away.

“Kinky?” Mycroft offers, and Gabriel chokes on sudden laughter. Mycroft has just a moment to view his eyes crinkle up in amusement before Gabriel presses his face to Mycroft’s shoulder, his arms bending and pressed snug against Mycroft’s arms. He is still chuckling when Mycroft lifts his own arms, traces careful lines down Gabriel’s sides and then his thighs, which makes Gabriel hum throatily and nip at Mycroft’s neck.

Mycroft’s eyes close involuntarily and his head falls back; Gabriel licks and sucks at his throat, his legs drawing closer and trapping Mycroft’s between them. Mycroft is struggling to keep his hands from sliding up over Gabriel’s back by gripping his hips, panting and shaking his head against the image of Gabriel sitting up over him, wings flared and open, and so is not prepared for Gabriel to sink down against him, chest to groin, startling a rather loud “Fuck!” from Mycroft.

Gabriel lifts his head to stare at him in delight, grinning hugely. “Why, I never--”

Mycroft grabs and pulls his head down, kissing him desperately, biting that beautiful smile and licking into Gabriel’s warm, laughing mouth. He thrusts up, holding tight to Gabriel’s hip, and mutters another curse against Gabriel’s lips as their cocks slide together, warm and heavy, so good that his toes are curling in his socks and his fingers are curling in Gabriel’s hair, and he is never, ever letting go, not ever.

It’s Gabriel who gets a hand between their bodies, fumbling and cursing through the endless wet kiss, and holds them together as they struggle to find a rhythm. Mycroft feels his orgasm coiling low in his belly, trembling in his thighs, and bucks up twice more in Gabriel’s grip before he loses it, crying out into Gabriel’s mouth and holding him tighter, surging up and desperate to bring Gabriel with him.

Gabriel, who groans low in his throat, rides out Mycroft’s orgasm, and would possibly, maybe, have rolled away or sat up or somehow put distance between them, had Mycroft not held on and whispered, “Now, come now,” into his ear. He does, working himself hard, and spilling onto Mycroft’s belly and chest. Mycroft can’t help but thrust again at the feel, his sensitive skin sliding deliciously against Gabriel’s.

Gabriel lets himself fall heavily on Mycroft, before sliding sideways to rest, facedown, on the bed. Mycroft refuses to get him go completely, his arm curled ‘round under Gabriel’s chest, needing to keep him close.

“I need to shower again,” Gabriel mumbles into the duvet, and Mycroft remembers that they haven’t removed the blankets, and smiles when he realises that his truest thought about that is, good, they can just dump them on the floor and sleep together under the sheet.

“If you shower again, will we do this again?” he asks.

“Mmm. If it takes a year or so.”

Mycroft turns his head and finds that Gabriel has done the same, and they stare at one another, curiously and searchingly, as if this is the first time they’ve looked. Mycroft traces with his gaze the lovely, rough features he’d like to trace with his fingers, or his lips.

“We could just wash up, then come back here and sleep,” he whispers, watching Gabriel’s eyelashes dip as he, in turn, watches Mycroft speak.

“Sounds good,” he murmurs. Neither he nor Mycroft move.

*********

tbc


	7. Chapter 7

*********

Mycroft’s eyes fly open and he holds himself very, very still, staring at the broad wing which stretches over his body, oddly heavy and almost scratchy on his bare skin.

Gabriel is still asleep, though his discomfort registers in the tight lines of his brow, and in the way his jaw tightens. Mycroft breathes as lightly as possible and tries to catalogue every sensation: the feverish warmth, the gentle tickle of the barbs, the sharper scratch of the rachis. The wing moves slowly, timed to Gabriel’s respiration, although the primary feathers seem to twitch a bit on their own as the manus bends.

Mycroft shifts, very slowly and gently, and stretches out his free arm, his palm upturned. He doesn’t attempt to touch the wing; he holds his hand just under it, and the wing bends delicately, feathers curving ‘round his outstretched fingers.

Gabriel sighs, and then mutters a soft, sharp curse; Mycroft turns his head to watch him get to his knees, wings flaring out and then tucking back in, while Gabriel lets his head rest on his forearms. He turns his head enough to open one brilliantly dark eye and croak, “Not as bad as yesterday.”

“You mean, this morning,” Mycroft corrects gently. “We’ve napped for half an hour.”

Another sigh, and Gabriel pushes himself up, sitting back on his heels again, wings flaring to avoid coming into contact with the bed. The rush of air this sends across Mycroft’s body makes him shiver, in a pleasant way.

“You’re a mess,” Gabriel says with an impish grin. Mycroft is entirely entranced by it. “What do you think; painkillers, wash-up, and then something to eat?”

“Genius,” Mycroft says warmly, and Gabriel laughs.

“You’re easy, you know that?”

“Not everything should be difficult,” Mycroft says quietly, and gently brushes his fingers over Gabriel’s hand. Gabriel swallows, his adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and his wings twitch.

“You’re kind,” he says after a moment, as if surprised.

Mycroft is, quite honestly. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re too kind,” Gabriel clarifies, staring at Mycroft with intensely dark eyes. “It hasn’t once crossed your mind that I’m buried in debt to you.”

“Not at all,” Mycroft says in alarm, sitting up, and only just subsides when Gabriel puts his hand out, gently touching Mycroft’s shoulder in a now familiar gesture.

“And you wouldn’t do anything at all, you’d just be kind and gracious about it, if I said ‘ta very much’ and left right now, and never said anything to you again.”

The mere thought of it sparks an ache that Mycroft, perhaps irrationally and surely unkindly, believes must rival the pain of Gabriel’s much-abused wings. But he is confused; how can he not be confused? What could he do but bear it, silently and with as much grace as he can muster, if Gabriel refuses to trust him with his secret any longer? He can’t ask for more; he doesn’t deserve more. He doesn’t deserve anything, really. There is no obligation between them but that which each of them, separately, choose.

His musings are cut off as Gabriel leans forward, catching him in a sweet, not entirely chaste, melting sort of kiss, with parted lips and gentle heat. Mycroft responds a bit too desperately; he knows even as he does it, shifting to close the distance between them and cupping Gabriel’s jaw in both hands.

Gabriel takes his wrists and pulls away, Mycroft making some small noise of disappointment, and looks from Mycroft’s mouth to his eyes. “I’m not easy,” he says, and then grins. “Despite all evidence to the contrary.”

“I don’t understand,” Mycroft finally admits. “And I didn’t accuse you at any time of being easy.”

“Don’t you ever try to use, you know,” Gabriel waves a hand in a vague circle, “leverage? When you’re doing--whatever it is, as a traffic minister?”

Mycroft can, from those words, deduce the entire conversation which Sherlock had with Gabriel earlier. He’d feel cold, if it weren’t for the fact that Gabriel is still here. “Leverage of that sort doesn’t work in personal relationships.” His voice is chill, though he doesn’t mean it to be.

Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Of course it does. You don’t use it against Sherlock?”

He appeals to reason, he appeals to sentimentality; sometimes he appeals to the social conventions regarding sibling relationships. None of it works. There is no leverage; Sherlock does as he wishes, and the irregular threats or promises Mycroft makes are simply to remind Sherlock of that complete lack of leverage, or power, or control. That Mycroft is asking, because he cannot do it himself, because Sherlock is his brother, because all he can do is ask, and hope.

If that is leverage, then it is simply a leveraging of weakness, and can one really leverage that?

“If I offer you everything and ask nothing in return but what you are willing to give me...” he trails off. He doesn’t know what he means to ask.

Gabriel says quietly, “It puts a pretty heavy burden on my shoulders.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“No.” He is very quiet.

“I--” Mycroft hesitates. “I can’t do anything about it.”

“No.”

Frustration wells up within him suddenly and Mycroft demands, “What do you want?”

“A little selfishness might be nice,” Gabriel says, and smirks--smirks!--at Mycroft. “Put us on slightly more even ground.”

Selfishness. There a thousand things Mycroft could say to that, except there aren’t, suddenly. There is only one; a request he certainly can’t make. Not with lines of weariness and pain still visible in Gabriel’s face.

“Ask,” Gabriel says, and Mycroft knows he has completely failed to keep his longing hidden.

“I can’t,” Mycroft says helplessly.

“Mycroft.” The way Gabriel says his name is breathtakingly elegant. “Trust me.”

And that’s the core of it, isn’t it? He has offered everything but secrets, but vulnerability, believing that to be a burden--and it is, but what a beautiful, precious thing to bear. Mycroft has so few of his own to offer--the secrets he keeps are those of nations, of people responsible for the lives of those nations--but this longing is his, and he can offer it, to be granted or denied. He can trust Gabriel that far, can’t he?

“I want to touch them,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “I want to be the only one who does.”

*********

Gabe wants to kiss him, but he also really, really wants to get cleaned up and eat something.

“Come on, up,” he says, smiling stupidly, feeling brilliant. Mycroft blinks at him but does as he says, staying well back as Gabe gets to his feet on the other side of the bed, euphoria making it easy. “Go on, get us something we can wash up with.”

“Gabriel?”

“You’re easy,” Gabe says again, liking the taste of the words, and laughs at the comically confused look on Mycroft’s face.

They clean up, get dressed--in flannel pyjama bottoms, another thing that makes Gabe laugh--and head down to the kitchen to find something to eat. Gabe is thinking so fast that he isn’t consciously keeping up; he’s made the decision before he can assemble the reasons, and so tries to think back to them.

“What’ve we got?” he asks, shrugging his wings to alleviate the low-level itch. He’s going to eat before he does anything about that; he won’t have the appetite afterwards.

“Some sort of chicken covered in things,” Mycroft says uncertainly, peering into the refrigerator, and Gabe thinks he’s going to give the man a complex, laughing at everything he says, and so refrains. “With reheating instructions and approximate serving sizes.”

“Typed up by your secretary?”

Mycroft wrinkles his nose a bit at the word. “My PA.”

“She does the shopping?”

“I have a horror of chip and pin machines.”

They work together easily, if not competently; Gabe is accustomed to take-out and frozen dinners and hasn’t used an oven in years, and Mycroft is unable to deduce where the oven mitts are kept. He uses folded dish cloths and Gabe drops three glasses, fortunately on the small carpet in front of the sink.

“Preheating means we don’t put the food in yet, correct?”

“That isn’t in the instructions?”

Mycroft texts his PA while Gabe tries to set the table, or rather the breakfast bar, but the silverware is as elusive as the oven mitts. He finds chopsticks and soup spoons, and shows them to Mycroft wordlessly.

“I usually dine out.”

Gabe grins. “No, really?”

“I do hide it well.”

They end up eating ice cream with soup spoons while the chicken covered in things heats, right out of the carton, because having dessert first is one of the few positive things about being grown-up. Mycroft’s phone buzzes as he gets the chicken out, so Gabe gets to read A’s text aloud. “Extinguisher in pantry if needed.”

“Yes, but what about the first aid kit?” Mycroft asks dryly, though he hasn’t burned himself.

They gamely set to ripping the chicken apart with their chopsticks. Gabe has a bit more trouble than Mycroft, and ends up just spearing the chicken and holding it up to bite. It’s quite good, despite its name.

“Restaurant quality,” he declares, “My compliments to the chef.”

“Merci.”

Gabe is about to get up and take his plate to the sink when Mycroft pushes a bottle of paracetamol across the table to him. “Merci,” he repeats, though not with the same easy intonation Mycroft had used, and takes three.

“Gabriel.”

“Will you sort these for me, after dinner?” Gabe asks, cutting off whatever it was he meant to say. Mycroft’s jaw falls a little, and his eyes open wider. “I don’t necessarily want it to be done, but it has to, so...”

“I--” Mycroft looks down at his hands, then at Gabe’s wings.

“Remember when John and I were talking, about being in a dark room, and going out into sunlight?” Gabe takes a deep breath. “It’s like that, I think. I got control over them when I was a kid, well, a teenager. Because I had to; because I had to touch them, and--” What is the word he’s looking for?

“Desensitise them,” Mycroft offers, still staring, and avoiding Gabe’s gaze.

“Yeah. And I think, if they’re a problem again now, I’m going to have to do the same.” He laughs a little. “Though I don’t know why they’re popping out again.”

“You were in your teens?” Mycroft looks thoughtful, but there’s a hint of a smile lurking ‘round his mouth now.

Gabe narrows his eyes. “Yeah.”

“So, puberty.”

“Yeah.”

Now he’s smirking. “So perhaps this is a response to the physical or hormonal changes of middle-age?”

“My mid-life crisis, you mean?” Gabe asks, and laughs. “Christ. I’d planned on getting a motorbike.”

Mycroft laughs with him, his eyes bright. “But, Gabriel, you know that it will take some time to desensitise them.”

“Does that bother you?” Gabe asks, feeling that it can’t possibly, Mycroft hasn’t shown any inclination of wanting to end their... whatever this is. And he wants to touch them; he’d said so--

“Not at all,” he says softly, and Gabe’s heartbeat slows again, before the heat in Mycroft’s eyes makes it speed right back up.

*********

John follows Sherlock as he pushes and bullies poor Gabe into a cab, ignoring his protests and insisting that there’s more to discuss about the case even as Donovan is offering to arrest him.

Gabe looks worlds better, John is pleased to note; his eyes are brighter and his shoulders aren’t slumped, and all the lines of pain are gone. The ones from weariness are still there, but only, John thinks, because he is dealing with Sherlock.

“Can I have a blood sample?” Sherlock asks patiently, as if going through a list. John thinks he probably is.

“No,” Gabe says flatly. The cabbie is looking at them in the mirror, but he doesn’t look all that impressed. Probably he’s heard weirder things than this.

“A skin sample?”

“No.” Icicles hang from the word. Mycroft’s been a good teacher. But Sherlock is completely undeterred.

“Can I swab the inside of your cheek?”

“No!”

“How about for my birthday? Better than those ugly gloves last year.”

“Sherlock!” Gabe yells.

“Is that a yes?”

“When you said our working relationship would suffer, I expected you to talk to me less.”

Sherlock shakes his head, mock sorrowfully. “We’ve already established that you are not the brightest of men, Lestrade.”

“Can I scare you away by talking about how great your brother is in bed?” Gabe asks hopefully.

“I can delete it faster than you can bring yourself to discuss it.”

Gabe finally locks eyes with John, who had looked up at the comment about Mycroft. “John, can you do something about him?”

John tries and fails to hide his grin. “No, sorry.”

*********

fin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Done, although I reserve the right to write something further in this 'verse should I be inspired. Thank you very much for your kind comments and kudos, and I sincerely hope I have done the prompt proud.
> 
> Now go click the wingfic tag and find the other (better) fics!

**Author's Note:**

> We all know I'm too lazy to get this beta-ed or Brit-picked by now, right? :|


End file.
